NIGHT-SHOOTING. 1 G-J 



merely my own people about me, it is very likely 

 I should have succeeded in dispatching this animal 

 also, apparently a lioness of huge stature. 



Gordon Gumming, who frequently sojourned in 

 districts where, as it would appear, lions wore more 

 than usually numerous, seems to have devoted much 

 time to night shooting, and to have killed, among 

 a multitude of other animals, several of those beasts. 

 And as his adventures on more than one of these 

 occasions were of an interesting nature, and are 

 graphically and spiritedly told, I have taken leave 

 to transfer a few to these pages. 



After describing the death of three buffaloes, 

 which one night that he passed in his " shooting- 

 box,"* as he calls it, fell to his deadly rifle, he goes 

 on to say : 



" Hardly had the remainder of the herd (of buffa- 

 loes) retreated when the sound of teeth tearing at 

 the carcases of the slain was heard. At first I 

 fancied it was the hyaenas, and fired a shot to scare 

 them from the flesh. All was then still ; and, being 

 anxious to inspect the heads of the buffaloes, 1 went 

 boldly forward, taking the native (my companion) 

 along with me. We were within about live yards 

 of the nearest buffalo, when J observed a yellow 

 mass lying alongside of him, and at the same instant 

 a lion gave a deep growl. I thought it was all over 

 with me. The native shouted ' '/'</<;,' and springing 



* Somewhat of a misnomer; the same consisting, as he elsewhere 

 tells us, "of a hedge of bushes sumc three feet in height, on the top 

 of which were placed dead clean old branches, all being firmly lashed 

 together with strips of the thorn-bush, so as to Conn a clear rest for 

 the rifles.'' 



